Ever feel like there aren't enough doable gestures on IOS? What I mean is you can assign gestures to several of the navigation functions so you don't have to turn and turn and turn the rotor, but you run out of available gestures pretty quick.
One missing gesture that I think should become a valid Voiceover gesture is what I call the Voiceover reset. After the speech stops, I think you should be able to have your phone recognize when you tap the screen with the tip of an extended middle finger, and that gesture would automatically cycle Voiceover off and back on.
I'm probably in the minority here, but I absolutely hate the magic tap. It answers the phone, starts and stops music, composes a tweet, does various functions. Yet i can barely do something, music starts, or when I hang up a call, it might not work right. I'd rather get rid of it. If the phone rings, tap our side button twice to answer, once to hangup. They really screwed us when they stopped letting us end a call that way. I'd rather be normal then tapping my phone like some trained seal to get it to do what I've already asked it once, if not more then that.
I definitely don't use it as often as I used to, but I do still use it occasionally to answer or hang up a call. I would be totally fine doing that with the side button. However, I also use magic tap sometimes to start or stop audio playback. I don't think that necessarily has to be tied to the magic tap though. Apple could just let us assign a gesture to start and stop audio playback. I would probably leave that as the two finger double tap since I'm so used to it, but if someone didn't want to do that, they could assign another action to that gesture, or assign that action to a different gesture. I always think more customization options is a good thing.
You're getting rid of gestures.
On the keyboard, you can use modifier keys, like option and a letter. I wonder if a touch screen could recognize keeping one finger in the same place, say the thumb, and swiping up or down with two other fingers, like if you were modifying the swipe gesture.
Guess it doesn't really matter because Apple would have to add the gestures to the programming.
I guess you want to talk about the Magic Tap instead.
The only time I have a problem with it is when the other person on a phone call has disconnected right before I make the gesture and the iPhone turns on music because the phone is no longer active. Apparently the activation of VO disables the accessibility setting that prevents locking the screen with the side button for the sighted among us. I've found lots of information about this setting, so I guess the sighted people hate hanging up the phone with the side button as much as Voice Over users hate doing it with the magic tap. https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/stop-iphone-side-button-hanging-up-call/
I don't use dictation, but the Magic Tap works for me in the Voice Memo app and a couple of other places I seem to remember using it. Facebook videos, maybe?
That middle finger gesture would be for the use of those of you who updated to IOS 16.4.x. You know, second mouse gets the cheese, third mouse lives with the knowledge that the cheese was poisoned...
There used to be a MacOS app CALLED BetterTouchTool that allowed the user to define their own track pad gestures, including a whole bunch of gestures we don't have in IOS. What I wish is for an app like BetterTouchTool made for IOS screen gesture definition.
At least they made it possible to change what the gestures do, and they did add a few of the five finger and back tap options. I remember back when you couldn't even change the pronunciation of words on IOS. Maybe they'll slowly add more. If it can recognize letters traced on the screen, surely it could recognize some more ways of making gestures.
If you go to accessibility>physical and motor>touch>assistive touch, you will find some interesting additional touch gesture options. Smile. Check it out!
Thanks. The long press options might be useful. It also reminds me to fool with the tap interval again because my double taps aren't always fast enough, and it thinks I'm moving the focus.
I think some of those options conflict with the VO gestures because I have both back tap gestures defined in VO settings, but they show nothing in the touch settings.
The feature to create a menu option for a gesture was useful to me back when I dropped a pruning saw across the back of my index finger. I was at the top of a orchard ladder at the time and really couldn't move my hand. It looked much, much worse than it was... It could have been much, much worse than it was...
I read an Apple Support article on how to add pretty much any gestures you can think of. You might need sighted assistance, however, because the new gesture recording process ends when you tap on the stop button, and it will still be recording while you're looking for that button.
Ya, no sighted help around here. Are you saying the new gesture will then appear in the gestures you can assign in the Voice Over section?
I'm not finding any information that says you can create a gesture that IOS doesn't currently recognize, then assign a function to it. Only that you can record a gesture, then that recording will appear in a special menu as an option, that you tap to select, and IOS will perform it for you, like if you chopped off a finger and can't make the rotor gesture anymore.
"To use your custom gesture, tap the AssistiveTouch menu button, tap Custom, then choose the gesture." https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/assistivetouch-iph96b21954/ios
That's the support article I'm looking at.
I've been using a screen reader developed by a small independent developer but it's really good. The only thing I hated was because it is independently developed, it didn't come with much manuals and guides, but once I could get the nuts and bolts in, the extensive range of customisation options is really brilliant. For example, there's an option allowing you to assign a gesture to a function for one specific app. That specific gesture will perform the function you set only in the app you choose and nowhere else. When using YouTube for example, I could assign swipe right with two fingers to skip forward 10 secs, left with two fingers to skip back, and tab with four fingers to perform two functions in a row, click the Options button and then click the Speed button. Those gestures will still perform its default function when YouTube is not in the foreground. That is brilliant. It really speeds up my flow as I do not have to grope about for certain elements, especially those I have to interact again, again and again :)).
Oops sorry Bruce. Somehow I totally forgot to mention that it is only available on Android. The screen reader is called CSR, which stands for Commentary Screen Reader, or by its original Chinese name Jieshuo.
Having tinkered with it long enough, I believe I've got a pretty idea of how to make the most out of this screen reader. If anyone interested in trying out with an Android, you can let me know. I'll be more than happy to help you guys with the initial setup.
Hi, actually, oppose the magic tap being taken.
Are you search on a day-to-day regular basis every day, the plate, unpause, my music, to start and end dictation, I just start and end a call.
Magic tap can also be customised with you know, not just do that…
10 months back, I purchased iPhone, still then I am an android user. I love one gesture in android talk back that is pass to the system gesture.
What this gesture will do this is an action and we need to assign to a gesture. For example, we assigned this gesture to the four finger single tap, when you press four finger single tap. The talkback gestures will paused Just for the next tab on the screen. I like this gesture a lot because I am a person with low vision. I can see the screen the icons and every thing but I can’t read the text.
If the application is menus or not accessible, if the talkback focus is not reaching to that menu, I will use this pass to the system gesture action. But in iOS I didn’t find any such action. Here in iOS, what I am doing I am Just turning off the VoiceOver just to perform the single gesture , or the tap on the screen. And re-enabling the VoiceOver again.
I also sometimes use the magic tap to play and pause YouTube, but sometimes when I do it to start playing a video, it starts playing audio from music I have in my music library. Does this happen to anyone else? It’s very frustrating, especially because I have a lot of kids music in there for my nieces and nephews and inevitably what starts playing is a very silly kids song. Yep, that’s definitely the music I’m listening to on a regular basis, lol.
I miss this gesture. I'm a long-time Android user who switched to iPhone a couple years ago. I love a lot of things about my iPhone, but this gesture is definitely one I miss since it made tapping something that wouldn't activate with the screen reader turned on easier. I'm totally blind, but I still come across times where I can't activate something with VoiceOver on but can figure out where it is, so I turn VoiceOver off, try to tap where I think the item is, which doesn't always work, and then turn it back on to see what happened.
One way we can increase gestures in VoiceOver by implementing angular gestures. These gestures or available in android top back from a long time. I do feel that there are so many actions in VoiceOver but the gesture switch VoiceOver provided is limited. If we can write a proper feedback to Apple they may implement these gestures in iOS 17.
One way you can overcome this issue, bye adding screen recognisation for one of the gesture. For example I added screen recognisation for four fingers swipe up. If you or not able to click on any of the button using the VoiceOver swipe just enable the screen recognisation and try it once. It may help you.
We often forget how smart our iPhones are, especially when it comes to learning engines. At any rate, I can think of dozens of missing gestures and even more if we include compound gestures, such as a 3 finger pinch followed by a single finger tap in the lower right corner, for example, but can we program this gesture?
If Apple can't or won't give the world more gestures, wouldn't it be nice if we could define our own? Touch gestures in settings>accessibility offers us a little but nowhere near as much as we might like.
Someday, I hope, Apple technology will catch up to the world of macro back in the 1980's. Back then, I could press a key, record a bunch of keystrokes that did whatever it was that I wanted to do, then press another key to stop recording my keystrokes, and then press the keystroke I wanted to use to execute the macro I had just created. It was brilliant! Just for example, I could press a key combination to launch a macro that would then finish off a letter I was writing with boilerplate language, then enter the date just below the letterhead at the top, and save the letter, prompting me to enter the path and filename along the way. Smile. Ah, for the primitive tech we all struggled with 40 years ago!
Nowadays, macros are called shortcuts, but shortcuts are far, far more complicated than the macros we enjoyed 40 years ago. And before anyone jumps in, the macros I'm talking about existed inside WordPerfect, which was then the leading word processing program. Yes, we called them programs back then, not apps. smile.
Comments
One Missing Gesture
One missing gesture that I think should become a valid Voiceover gesture is what I call the Voiceover reset. After the speech stops, I think you should be able to have your phone recognize when you tap the screen with the tip of an extended middle finger, and that gesture would automatically cycle Voiceover off and back on.
I'd love to do away with the "magic tap"
I'm probably in the minority here, but I absolutely hate the magic tap. It answers the phone, starts and stops music, composes a tweet, does various functions. Yet i can barely do something, music starts, or when I hang up a call, it might not work right. I'd rather get rid of it. If the phone rings, tap our side button twice to answer, once to hangup. They really screwed us when they stopped letting us end a call that way. I'd rather be normal then tapping my phone like some trained seal to get it to do what I've already asked it once, if not more then that.
I tend to agree with the…
I tend to agree with the magic tap thing.
The only time I find myself using it is to hang up a call, or to end dictation.
Magic Tap
I definitely don't use it as often as I used to, but I do still use it occasionally to answer or hang up a call. I would be totally fine doing that with the side button. However, I also use magic tap sometimes to start or stop audio playback. I don't think that necessarily has to be tied to the magic tap though. Apple could just let us assign a gesture to start and stop audio playback. I would probably leave that as the two finger double tap since I'm so used to it, but if someone didn't want to do that, they could assign another action to that gesture, or assign that action to a different gesture. I always think more customization options is a good thing.
Going the wrong way
You're getting rid of gestures.
On the keyboard, you can use modifier keys, like option and a letter. I wonder if a touch screen could recognize keeping one finger in the same place, say the thumb, and swiping up or down with two other fingers, like if you were modifying the swipe gesture.
Guess it doesn't really matter because Apple would have to add the gestures to the programming.
Magic Tap
It seems to not work more often than it works, so I wouldn't mind if it was gone. I only use it to answer and end phone calls.
OK then
I guess you want to talk about the Magic Tap instead.
The only time I have a problem with it is when the other person on a phone call has disconnected right before I make the gesture and the iPhone turns on music because the phone is no longer active. Apparently the activation of VO disables the accessibility setting that prevents locking the screen with the side button for the sighted among us. I've found lots of information about this setting, so I guess the sighted people hate hanging up the phone with the side button as much as Voice Over users hate doing it with the magic tap.
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/stop-iphone-side-button-hanging-up-call/
I don't use dictation, but the Magic Tap works for me in the Voice Memo app and a couple of other places I seem to remember using it. Facebook videos, maybe?
That middle finger gesture would be for the use of those of you who updated to IOS 16.4.x. You know, second mouse gets the cheese, third mouse lives with the knowledge that the cheese was poisoned...
I wish
There used to be a MacOS app CALLED BetterTouchTool that allowed the user to define their own track pad gestures, including a whole bunch of gestures we don't have in IOS. What I wish is for an app like BetterTouchTool made for IOS screen gesture definition.
Progress though
At least they made it possible to change what the gestures do, and they did add a few of the five finger and back tap options. I remember back when you couldn't even change the pronunciation of words on IOS. Maybe they'll slowly add more. If it can recognize letters traced on the screen, surely it could recognize some more ways of making gestures.
Assistive Touch
Hey OldBear,
If you go to accessibility>physical and motor>touch>assistive touch, you will find some interesting additional touch gesture options. Smile. Check it out!
Only finding a few things
Thanks. The long press options might be useful. It also reminds me to fool with the tap interval again because my double taps aren't always fast enough, and it thinks I'm moving the focus.
I think some of those options conflict with the VO gestures because I have both back tap gestures defined in VO settings, but they show nothing in the touch settings.
The feature to create a menu option for a gesture was useful to me back when I dropped a pruning saw across the back of my index finger. I was at the top of a orchard ladder at the time and really couldn't move my hand. It looked much, much worse than it was... It could have been much, much worse than it was...
Assistive Touch programming
OldBear,
I read an Apple Support article on how to add pretty much any gestures you can think of. You might need sighted assistance, however, because the new gesture recording process ends when you tap on the stop button, and it will still be recording while you're looking for that button.
I hope this helps.
Bruce
Using it with VO
Ya, no sighted help around here. Are you saying the new gesture will then appear in the gestures you can assign in the Voice Over section?
I'm not finding any information that says you can create a gesture that IOS doesn't currently recognize, then assign a function to it. Only that you can record a gesture, then that recording will appear in a special menu as an option, that you tap to select, and IOS will perform it for you, like if you chopped off a finger and can't make the rotor gesture anymore.
"To use your custom gesture, tap the AssistiveTouch menu button, tap Custom, then choose the gesture."
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/assistivetouch-iph96b21954/ios
That's the support article I'm looking at.
Link to the Apple Support article
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202658
App-specific gestures
I've been using a screen reader developed by a small independent developer but it's really good. The only thing I hated was because it is independently developed, it didn't come with much manuals and guides, but once I could get the nuts and bolts in, the extensive range of customisation options is really brilliant. For example, there's an option allowing you to assign a gesture to a function for one specific app. That specific gesture will perform the function you set only in the app you choose and nowhere else. When using YouTube for example, I could assign swipe right with two fingers to skip forward 10 secs, left with two fingers to skip back, and tab with four fingers to perform two functions in a row, click the Options button and then click the Speed button. Those gestures will still perform its default function when YouTube is not in the foreground. That is brilliant. It really speeds up my flow as I do not have to grope about for certain elements, especially those I have to interact again, again and again :)).
Jinny
Hi Jinny. Very interesting. What's the name of the screen reader? It is for IOS?
Bruce
Oops sorry Bruce. Somehow I totally forgot to mention that it is only available on Android. The screen reader is called CSR, which stands for Commentary Screen Reader, or by its original Chinese name Jieshuo.
Having tinkered with it long enough, I believe I've got a pretty idea of how to make the most out of this screen reader. If anyone interested in trying out with an Android, you can let me know. I'll be more than happy to help you guys with the initial setup.
Magic tap
Hi, actually, oppose the magic tap being taken.
Are you search on a day-to-day regular basis every day, the plate, unpause, my music, to start and end dictation, I just start and end a call.
Magic tap can also be customised with you know, not just do that…
I don't need more gestures.
I thought I'd way in on this magic tap thing. I really like it, I use it to play and pause youtube all the time.
I tried out android and as far as I know; that isn't a thing you can do there.
Passing to the system gesture
10 months back, I purchased iPhone, still then I am an android user. I love one gesture in android talk back that is pass to the system gesture.
What this gesture will do this is an action and we need to assign to a gesture. For example, we assigned this gesture to the four finger single tap, when you press four finger single tap. The talkback gestures will paused Just for the next tab on the screen. I like this gesture a lot because I am a person with low vision. I can see the screen the icons and every thing but I can’t read the text.
If the application is menus or not accessible, if the talkback focus is not reaching to that menu, I will use this pass to the system gesture action. But in iOS I didn’t find any such action. Here in iOS, what I am doing I am Just turning off the VoiceOver just to perform the single gesture , or the tap on the screen. And re-enabling the VoiceOver again.
Re: Magic Tap with YouTube
I also sometimes use the magic tap to play and pause YouTube, but sometimes when I do it to start playing a video, it starts playing audio from music I have in my music library. Does this happen to anyone else? It’s very frustrating, especially because I have a lot of kids music in there for my nieces and nephews and inevitably what starts playing is a very silly kids song. Yep, that’s definitely the music I’m listening to on a regular basis, lol.
Re: Passing to the system gesture
I miss this gesture. I'm a long-time Android user who switched to iPhone a couple years ago. I love a lot of things about my iPhone, but this gesture is definitely one I miss since it made tapping something that wouldn't activate with the screen reader turned on easier. I'm totally blind, but I still come across times where I can't activate something with VoiceOver on but can figure out where it is, so I turn VoiceOver off, try to tap where I think the item is, which doesn't always work, and then turn it back on to see what happened.
Angular gestures
One way we can increase gestures in VoiceOver by implementing angular gestures. These gestures or available in android top back from a long time. I do feel that there are so many actions in VoiceOver but the gesture switch VoiceOver provided is limited. If we can write a proper feedback to Apple they may implement these gestures in iOS 17.
Re: Passing to the system gesture
One way you can overcome this issue, bye adding screen recognisation for one of the gesture. For example I added screen recognisation for four fingers swipe up. If you or not able to click on any of the button using the VoiceOver swipe just enable the screen recognisation and try it once. It may help you.
Turns out i was wrong abou the magic tap on Android.
It does exist.
I've never had the mmusic issue because I don't have music on my phone.
I think I've had it play podcasts though once or twice.
love magic tap
I love the magic and use it all the time.
Many missing gestures
We often forget how smart our iPhones are, especially when it comes to learning engines. At any rate, I can think of dozens of missing gestures and even more if we include compound gestures, such as a 3 finger pinch followed by a single finger tap in the lower right corner, for example, but can we program this gesture?
If Apple can't or won't give the world more gestures, wouldn't it be nice if we could define our own? Touch gestures in settings>accessibility offers us a little but nowhere near as much as we might like.
Someday, I hope, Apple technology will catch up to the world of macro back in the 1980's. Back then, I could press a key, record a bunch of keystrokes that did whatever it was that I wanted to do, then press another key to stop recording my keystrokes, and then press the keystroke I wanted to use to execute the macro I had just created. It was brilliant! Just for example, I could press a key combination to launch a macro that would then finish off a letter I was writing with boilerplate language, then enter the date just below the letterhead at the top, and save the letter, prompting me to enter the path and filename along the way. Smile. Ah, for the primitive tech we all struggled with 40 years ago!
Nowadays, macros are called shortcuts, but shortcuts are far, far more complicated than the macros we enjoyed 40 years ago. And before anyone jumps in, the macros I'm talking about existed inside WordPerfect, which was then the leading word processing program. Yes, we called them programs back then, not apps. smile.
Joy!
Bruce